Dec. 19, 2011

Hey mom HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I love you so much and have appreciated all of the support that you have given to me this last year and 8 months that I have been out here. I am doing well and miss you quite a bit, but I know the best birthday/Christmas gift I can give you is to just keep working hard and return with honor. You have been a big motivating factor to me and have really given me all of the support and all the tools I have needed to become a successful missionary. Thanks for everything mom.

It was a really good week as we had the opportunity to interview and baptize a few of the people that we were teaching here in the sector. I have grown a lot as a missionary this week and feel re-energized to go out and work hard these next couple of weeks. The good news is that we baptized the people that we were teaching, but the only bad news is that now we have nobody to teach. This week we plan on hitting the ground running with intentions of finding solid people that are willing to follow Christ. This week has drained me a lot and I honestly feel like an old man. All of the new missionaries are coming in and they have so much energy and are so willing to learn and progress and I look at myself and see the difference. I really admire the newer missionaries and the energy they bring to the table, my companion has really kept me working hard. We have been able to find a way to have success in all that we do here in the sector and are hoping to not only continue baptizing and reactivating families that have fallen away, but really help these people so that they can endure to the end and become successful in all that they do.

Next week is Christmas!!! I am so excited to see you guys and to open the presents you sent. (I already opened most of them haha. Thanks for the scriptures, I knew you were going to send me some and I wanted to use them in my studies so...I opened them early haha. Sorry. They are really nice though. Don't worry though, I will wait until Christmas morning to open up the ties that you sent me this week (I only opened one...haha) It seems like you are all doing well though and I am so glad that we can talk this next week! Are you guys excited? I am not 100% sure what time we will talk at. Anyways love you a ton and wish you a very very merry Christmas!

Love you!

Elder Cody Dastrup

December 5, 2011

Hey!
Sorry for getting back to you guys so late today, I had a lot of little things to do. It was pretty uneventful wee here (worked hard but nothing crazy happened). We have 5 people that are preparing to get baptized right now and I am honestly feeling like all 5 of them will make it. One of the people that we are working with is ready and has been ready for a long time but she doesn't have permission from her parents because they think that she will be kicked out of her (catholic) school. It is really a dumb situation and so I have been talking to a few people that work here in the government and they are going to help us find out a way to protect her rights and get her baptized in the church. I am so thankful for always having a family that supported me in everything I did and I honestly feel so much pain when I see parents who don't want whats best for their kids, but are more worried about their own personal problems. We have made progress with the family and we are hoping that she can get baptized on the 17th of this month. Which brings me to the next topic...the 17th of December. We are planning on having a baptismal service at 7 or 8 in the night and we are expecting to have 8 or 9 baptisms!!! I am so excited and have never felt better about the work that we are doing than I do right now. I am loving everything and I love where I am at/hoping that I don't get transferred in a week! We have changes in a week and I am really hoping that I will be able to spend Christmas here.

Today we were in the office of the mission putting in the numbers from the week and stuff and we got to talking to Hermana Humphrey and I thought you would like what she said....Our office is right next door to the other mission (Concepcion south) office and they decorated the office like crazy. They have a Christmas tree, streamers and a bunch of other stuff. Well, hermana Humphrey saw that they had decorated the office and she saw that ours wasn't and it made her a little jealous, so she went and looked at it, examined it and then came back and decided that they couldn't have a "more cute" office than us. Anywho, it turns out that their president gave them a certain amount of $ to decorate and so hermana Humphrey said we could us a little more, and they had a Christmas tree so hermana Humphrey said we needed a bigger one...anyways one thing led to another and before I knew it I was cutting out paper ice-cicles and hanging them from the roof of he office ceiling (using an hour of my p-day), but I did it all in the spirit of Christmas haha.

It sounds like all is well back home and I found it really interesting that you guys had a little snow. We had a little rain the other day but it is like 85 degrees here right now, so there are no predictions of a white Christmas. How excited are you guys for Christmas? I am not dying of excitement, but I am definitely excited for the opportunity to talk to you guys. I will be taking a ton of pictures and I will make sure to be better at sending you guys any pictures that I take. Love you and hope all is well! Tell Josh I am sending him a letter but the line at the post office was too long today and I didn't have time to wait and that I will send it next week!

Yours truly,
Elder Cody Dastrup